NEO-FOLK FEATURES OF CREATIVITY VALENTYN GORDIYCHUK AND ANATOLIY TOKAREV

Abstract

Exploring and analyzing the artistic heritage of Ukrainian graphic artists of the second half of the twentieth century, we can note that creative searches in the field of book design in the 1970s-1980s were the result of a conscious struggle of artists with external embellishment and superficial decorative character devoid of deep meaning. Ukrainian masters of book graphics Valentin Gordeychuk and Anatoly Tokarev with their works refuted the tendencies of a certain decline in the visual language of this period, after the rise of book art in the 1950s-1960s. Kyiv artists Valentin Gordeychuk and Anatoly Tokarev took the path of renewal, an organic and holistic solution of all design elements of the book. In particular, they consider it necessary to rethink Kotlyarevsky's “Eneida”, focusing on baroque themes, making extensive use of Ukrainian ethnographic features, active color and a dramatic atmosphere, where the pathos of heroism and averaged images begin to give way to thinking about the poem as a work of deep content. The research methodology consists in the application of general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, the unity of the historical and logical) and art history methods (comparative, typological, descriptive). The scientific novelty of the work lies in the study of the neo-folklore features of illustration by Valentin Gordiychuk and Anatoly Tokarev. It is important to emphasize that Ukrainian illustrators of the 1970s-1980s tended to focus on the spiritual, cultural and plastic foundations of the historical artistic heritage. It can be noted that the traditions of the Baroque era are closely intertwined in these illustrations with national folk motives. Therefore, an extremely fruitful object of research is the work of the masters of book graphics in a new artistic interpretation of literary images by Ivan Kotlyarevsky.